When the meraglim brought back an evil report about Israel they talked about giant fruits, giant cities, and giant people. What they really should have reported if they wanted to frighten the people was the giant cockroaches known as jukim. New York has nothing on Israeli cockroaches.
What's most impressive to me about jukim is that they are deceptively fast, like linebackers on steroids. You'd expect a cockroach that big to be an easy kill, but I found out the first time I tried to whack one that you usually get just one swing, and if you miss, you've struck out. The juk will be gone, disappearing into some crack or crevice a fraction of its size (this is what the Gemara means when it talks about a place containing much more than its physical area; even the bugs here live on miracles).
Last night I was minding my own business, trusting that you could mind yours without me, when I spotted a juk on my kitchen floor, midway between my front door and a wall. I instinctively reached for an empty 1.5 liter plastic bottle.
Time froze in that instant. The juk and I sized each other up, knowing that we would not coexist, could not coexist, engaged in a stalemate that could not last. Without making much of a move lest I prompt my adversary into an early retreat, I glanced around for a better weapon, something with a wider range, yet with sufficient punch to kill, and also dispensable, but found none. It would be the slim plastic bottle.
The juk didn't move in those seconds, knowing an attack would be forthcoming and waiting for me to make my move so he would know which way to dash. I waited as well, thinking the juk might crack and just make a run for it one way or the other. If I swung at the wrong moment I was almost certain to miss, and the juk would likely be gone before I could strike again. And I didn't want to gamble that he would be gone inside my apartment instead of out through the narrow opening underneath my door. The tension was extreme.
I advanced toward my target, slowly, carefully, poised to strike if the juk moved. Then it all happened at once. The juke scurried left toward the wall and I swung in that same instant, scoring a direct hit. Crunch! The juk was down and I poised to strike again in case there was any movement, but there was none. I was doubly pleased to see that there was no mess of blood and guts. It was a very clean kill.
Disposing of the body was no pleasant task, since I did not want to come into even indirect contact with the thing. I decided to sweep him out into the hall of my basement apartment, and brushed him all the way down the hall, figuring the corpse could be relocated at a later time if needed. Hopefully the cleaning people would get rid of him, or he might decompose quickly, or some other bugs might feast on him, perhaps even take his presence as a warning. At that moment I just wanted him out and far away. Dead juks are far less urgent to me than live ones.
This morning I woke up for an early minyan and noticed that the dead juk was no longer there. No one else lives down here, and few ever traverse the hall. It was very unlikely that in those few hours someone had passed by and decided to remove the dead juk, or that an army of other bugs had eaten it or carried it away for burial.
That left one likely possibility: I had failed to deliver a final blow after all. Like any number of cheap horror movies, and against all appearances, I had failed to finish off the monster.
I hope there is some other explanation. But for now I can only dread the possibility that this little contest -- nay, this nightmare -- may not be over.
